Hull , Burnley , West Ham and Sunderland have also tried to be busy as they fight for survival while the bigger clubs clearly feel they are going well enough already.

Chelsea's Nemanja Matic has been a January window success story (Image: Shaun Botterill)

In the past, title chasers have spent big with Chelsea particularly good advocates of the January window as the signings of Nemanja Matic and David Luiz good examples.

Arsenal even bought Jose Antonio Reyes in 2004 and he is often dismissed as a disaster who got homesick but you could argue his arrival in January 2004 gave them a turn boost to the title.

But now the big deals are done at the other end and football finance expert Anna Semens, Head of Analytics at HSE Cake, makes it very clear as to why.

Semens said: “The transfer window so far has been relatively quiet in terms of big deals, but that’s not too surprising and it looks like spending will probably reach a similar level to this time last year overall.

“While the top teams competing for the title tend to invest heavily in the summer window, January tends to see more action at the lower end, with clubs competing to avoid relegation.

TV deals are worth millions more in the Premier League (Image: Michael Steele)

“Avoiding relegation is in many ways worth more than actually winning the league, with Premier League status worth around £100m to a club with guaranteed TV revenue as well as a higher level of sponsorship fees - a shirt sponsorship deal for the bottom Premier League clubs could be as much as ten times that of Championship clubs.

“This window in particular seems to have been characterised by a redistribution of power between players, clubs and agents with rumours of big money moves to China (and elsewhere) testing the resolve of clubs to hold on to their best players.

“This influx of spending from a new market can create more options for players and in the short term at least, is likely to push up wages of the very best players that clubs don’t want to lose.”